I Think I Fell for You at the Bottom of the Abyss (Probably) - The Secret of the Ascending Load and the Shining Stone

The crystal pillar's surface bit coldly into her palm. Riko took a slow breath. Her exhaled breath turned white, dissolving into the pale blue light. The Oroaku had left. But the rocky shelf was gone. The tent, the fire stand, most of the preserved food—everything had sunk to the bottom of the sea of corpses. (Worst morning ever.) Even as she thought it, her mind remained strangely calm. Crying wouldn't bring anything back. Lamenting wouldn't return her companions. Just keep moving. That was all there was. She climbed higher up the crystal pillar. When she passed ten meters, her vision suddenly opened up. The sea of corpses spread before her in full view. This layer, spanning from seven thousand to twelve thousand meters in depth, always took her breath away. The icy-cold subterranean sea stretched endlessly, and from it, crystal pillars jutted up like sprouts. Two hundred to five hundred meters tall. Force fields—unknown energy that saturated the Abyss—pooled inside the pillars, scattering pale blue light. There was no ceiling, just a vague band of luminescence. Day and night looked almost the same brightness. Quiet. Vast. A little frightening. But beautiful, she thought. "Reg, Nanachi... where are you guys?" She whispered it softly. The sound of her own voice startled her—it was low. Right. She had a boy's body now. Because of that glowing stone she'd touched yesterday—the milky-white stone about the size of a fist—this had happened. The moment she touched it, something jolted through her, she lost consciousness, and when she woke up, she was a boy. Reg and Nanachi had touched it too, so all three of them must have changed. Where that stone was now, she didn't know. Had it sunk with the rocky shelf, or— "...We can change back, right?" Words without foundation. But saying them out loud steadied her a little. Scanning from the top of the crystal pillar, she caught movement in the distance to the left, around the third pillar ahead. Something brownish. Small. "Ah—!" She descended the pillar. The cuts on her palms opened again, but there was no time to worry about that. From rocky shelf to rocky shelf, jumping, running, drawing closer. As she approached, the outline of that "something" became clearer. Rabbit-like ears. Fluffy fur. A body a bit larger than small. "Nanachi!" When she called out, the figure spun around. Nanachi was a "blessed" creature—something that had stopped being human after receiving the Abyss's curse, connected to research by the White Whistle explorer Lyza. But Nanachi could speak properly, could think, and Nanachi was Nanachi. A body wrapped in soft brown fur. Round eyes. An expression that always looked a little sleepy. Except now, that face was different. Nanachi's voice was low. "...Riko. Thank god. You're alive." "Nanachi's voice changed too!" "Don't laugh. This is the worst." The fluffy fur was the same, but the voice alone sounded like a boy's. It was surreal enough to make Riko want to laugh again. "Where's Reg?" "I heard a voice from another pillar a while ago. I'm heading that way." The two of them moved. From rocky shelf to rocky shelf. The surface of the sea of corpses still had Oougasumi drifting across it—transparent jellyfish-like creatures three to fifteen meters in diameter. Touch them and you died instantly from neurotoxin. They moved carefully, staying away from the water's surface. "Hey, Nanachi. What was that stone, anyway?" "The one we found in the Calling Stone depression? ...I've been thinking about it too." Nanachi spoke while walking. Nanachi had deep knowledge of Abyss relics and force fields. She'd spent a long time near Lyza. "Abyss force fields have the property of manipulating existence information. Most relics are concentrated versions of that force. That stone... probably rewrote the existence information of whoever touched it." "Existence information?" "Roughly speaking, it's like a blueprint of the body. That stone reversed it—between male and female." "So normal medicine can't fix it?" "It can't. Rewriting existence information isn't something medicine or surgery can handle. We'd need another relic or the power of a special place." Riko was quiet for a moment. (So it really won't be easy to change back.) But she wasn't despairing. Nanachi hadn't said "there's no way." Just that "normal methods won't work." "Nanakamado Spring!" Nanachi turned around. "...The one written in the old map?" "Yeah! It was on Mom's map. It said the spring water has the power to 'return existence to its original form.' I read it before we came to the Fifth Layer." Nanachi thought for a while. "...The location is southwest from the deepest part of the Fifth Layer. Estimated about fifteen kilometers from here." "That's far." "There's the Kurogane Corridor on the way. A rock tunnel, three kilometers long. Places where the width drops below two meters. Nurikabe-modoki—mimicry creatures that assimilate into walls and wait for prey—live there. Fire is their weakness." "Nanachi, you know a lot." "Lyza told me. She'd made maps of places beyond here too." Something warm bloomed in Riko's chest. Mom was in this place. Now I'm walking where she walked. Thinking that, this cold, dark place looked a little different. Then a voice came from ahead. "H-help me—!!" She ran toward the voice. Through the crystal pillars, jumping over two rocky shelves— There was Reg. Reg was originally a mysterious boy discovered deep in the Abyss, with parts of his body made of machinery. Both arms had incinerators built in—heat-ray weapons—and when fired, the impact point exceeded four thousand degrees. But using them meant losing consciousness for ten minutes. That was Reg's constraint. And now Reg was cornered at the edge of a rocky shelf. What was cornering him— "What is that?" A round creature at least a meter in diameter was lumbering toward Reg. Its entire body was covered in black-gleaming chitin, and it had no visible face. Well, the front wasn't visible—the mouth was probably underneath. "A Nakigani." Nakigani—a type of crab that lived on the Fifth Layer's rocky shelves. Its shell was hard; normal weapons didn't work. But it moved slowly. "It's slow but won't give up! I've been chased for like thirty minutes!" "Thirty minutes!?" "Don't laugh! The thing keeps chasing even when I cross the rocky shelves!!" Reg's voice was low too. Right, all three of them had changed, Riko thought again. "Nakigani react to light. We should be able to lure it toward where the force field is strongest." "Then—that crystal pillar!" Riko picked up a stone lying nearby. She threw it hard at the side of the crystal pillar. A sharp *clang* rang out. The force field inside the pillar vibrated, and the pale blue light flared brighter for a moment. The Nakigani stopped dead. Then, slowly, it turned toward the light. Lumbering, lumbering—it walked toward the pillar. "Whoa, it actually went." "Run while you can." The three of them ran quietly in the opposite direction. After running for a while, they finally stopped. The three faced each other. Reg's voice was low. Riko's voice was low. Nanachi's voice was low too. All three had boys' bodies now. It was a weird sight. She wanted to laugh. "...We're all together again." "Not exactly a happy situation though." "We've lost our base. Almost no preserved food. Survival comes first." Nanachi spoke calmly. Right. This wasn't the time to laugh—but Riko was just happy they'd reunited. "Let's head for Nanakamado Spring." "Huh, now?" "That's the only way to change back, and we've lost our base anyway. We have to keep moving forward. Staying here won't help." Reg made a troubled face. Nanachi thought for a moment. "...I'm going to teach you something important, Riko." "What?" "The Abyss is relatively easy to descend. But trying to go back up kills you." Riko knew. Ascending pressure. The curse that activated when you moved upward inside the Abyss. On the Fifth Layer—just trying to go back up meant losing consciousness. Forgetting who you were. Your body transforming. That was the Fifth Layer's ascending pressure. That's why everyone who came here gave up on returning. There was a term for it: *zetsugai-kou*—a one-way trip. Descending deeper than the Fifth Layer was effectively a point of no return. "So your decision to move forward is right. But—" Nanachi continued. "The path to Nanakamado Spring has the Kurogane Corridor. Nurikabe-modoki are waiting. We need fire prepared. Leaving now is under-prepared." "So what do we do?" "Secure food. Find an alternate base. We need at least a day for preparation." Riko hesitated. Between the urge to move forward and the rightness of Nanachi's words. But Nanachi was almost never wrong. "...Okay. One day." "One day is enough." The three started moving. Nanachi led, Reg followed behind, Riko in the middle. The cluster of crystal pillars glowed pale blue. The sea of corpses spread out. Somewhere distant, water moved with a sound. Riko looked at the cuts on her palm as she walked. The wounds from climbing the pillar. The bleeding had stopped, but red lines remained. (Did Mom make wounds like this too?) White Whistle Lyza. Riko's mother. Someone who went deeper into the Abyss and was somewhere still. If they headed for Nanakamado Spring, maybe—maybe Mom left something there. The fact that the location was on the old map didn't feel like coincidence. Then Nanachi stopped. "...Riko." "What?" Nanachi pointed. Between the crystal pillar and rocky shelf, in a slightly shadowed spot. Milky-white light flickered. "Isn't that the stone?" Riko's eyes locked onto that light. She'd thought it fell with the rocky shelf when the Oroaku destroyed it. But the stone was here. "Don't touch it." Nanachi's voice was low. "If you touch it, who knows what happens. Three of us already changed sex. If we touch it again, what—" "I know. I won't touch it." Riko stared at the stone. The milky-white light swayed gently, glowing softly. Beautiful, she thought. But she understood now how troublesome it was. "I'm taking it. If we're going to break the curse at the spring, this stone might be a clue." Nanachi carefully picked it up with gloved hands. No direct skin contact. The light remained calm. "If I can analyze this, we might learn something." "Nanachi's amazing." "Obviously." Saying "obviously" in a low voice with that fluffy appearance was somehow funny, and Riko laughed quietly to herself. The three started walking again. One day for preparation. Then the Kurogane Corridor. Beyond that, Nanakamado Spring. The pale blue light of the sea of corpses stretched their shadows long behind them.

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Episode 2

Name: I Think I Fell for You at the Bottom of the Abyss (Probably)
Author: Novelia

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